Paper instruction manuals are currently an essential part of appliance packaging. Electronic manuals rather than paper manuals not only save costs, but also are more environmentally friendly. Hence, it is necessary to identify a model of an appliance in order to provide the correct manual.
Conventionally, borderlines of panel surfaces can be detected for appliance model identification. The detected borderlines can provide perspective information essential for 3-D (3-Dimensional) reconstruction and matching and shape (e.g., aspect ratio) data associated with the panel surfaces, which can be employed as a part of a feature set for model identification. Such detected borderlines also provide a boundary that specifies a region of interest (the panel surface) in which the components and features are then extracted for further identification. A mobile communications device, for example, such as a Smartphone may be employed optically to measure the front and back panel of an appliance to identify its features, components, and product model.
One of the problems associated with such an approach involves lighting, particularly because images are usually captured by an appliance owner who is typically not experts in imaging. Quite often, even when the overall ambient light is sufficient, it is still not possible to ensure that all borderlines are detectable. For example, FIG. 1 illustrates an image 100 of an appliance captured by an image-capturing unit. A left border 111 of a panel is hardly perceptible in the image 100. FIG. 2 illustrates an image 150 of an appliance captured by an image-capturing unit with a flash on. The object at the front receives most of the light and can be easily distinguishable from the background. A panel surface 160 in FIG. 2 indicates a strong unevenness in illumination. In other instances, oversaturation in lighting may wash away image details which are captured with a flash as depicted in FIG. 3. Also, the image details of the receptacles may be lost due to a flash, particularly compared with FIG. 4, which is taken without a flash.
Based on the foregoing, it is believed that a need exists for an improved method and system for detecting an object borderline, as will be described in greater detail herein.